


nothing in between me and the sky

by potato_writes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes
Summary: Brienne Tarth is eight years old when she decides she wants to follow in her father's footsteps and become a pilot.Based on Me And The Sky, from Come From Away.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	nothing in between me and the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I play Me And The Sky from Come From Away on loop and get inspired to write things, and this is one of those times. I did absolutely no research for this fic, so please don't judge my lack of plane/pilot knowledge as I really have no idea what I'm talking about for half of this.   
> Title from Come From Away.  
> Find me on Tumblr as potatothecat.

Brienne Tarth is eight years old when she decides she wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a pilot.

It’s the first time Selwyn Tarth takes his only surviving child down to visit the small airport on the island where he works, mainly ferrying visitors to and from the island of Tarth on float planes. He’s flown with the military in King’s Landing before, but with the recent death of Brienne’s elder brother he’s been put on leave for a while so he can grieve with his only remaining family. Normally, Brienne stays with Ms. Roelle, the sharp-tongued neighbour who refuses to take her ward to see her father’s workplace when he’s not around. But Selwyn’s finally around, and she’s been begging him to take her to the airport for almost a year now. 

Once she finally sees it, she immediately thinks that she wants to work there someday.

Tarth’s airport is tiny compared to those on the mainland, seeing as it’s not a popular tourist destination like Highgarden or Sunspear. However, it still has enough going on to fascinate a girl of eight who’s never seen a plane up close before, even more so when her father actually takes her into the cockpit of one of the float planes currently being stored in the hangar. She spends at least ten minutes in there, staring with wide eyes at the dials and readings showing information she can’t yet understand. But she will, she tells herself as Selwyn finally coaxes her out of the cockpit. Someday, she’ll know what all of those little signs mean.

“I want to be a pilot like you,” she tell her father later as they sit in the airport’s cramped lounge and split a somewhat stale cinnamon bun between themselves. “I want to fly like all of those planes we saw today.”

Selwyn smiles at his daughter, deliberately not saying that it’s a fanciful dream at best. No woman has ever been a pilot in Westeros before, and that’s not for lack of trying. Many of his colleagues simply refuse to accept that times are changing, that there’s no rules preventing the demographics of his fellow pilots from shifting anymore. Most of them began flying before the last war in Essos, though, and still carry the ideals from that time with them.

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work,” he tells Brienne rather than saying any of this. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“I can work hard,” she counters, sitting up a little straighter at the challenge. “I’ll put in the work, and someday I’ll get to fly one of those planes too.” She speaks with enough conviction that it seems like a vow, a promise that she’ll reach that goal no matter the opposition she might face. It all seems so simple to her at eight.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” her father replies, handing her the last piece of the cinnamon bun. “But I hope that you’re right about all that.”

“I will be,” Brienne says, with all the confidence of a young girl who has yet to see the worst the world has to offer her. “I will be.”

***

Shortly before Brienne’s tenth birthday, war breaks out in Essos once again and her father is called away to help fly supplies in to the soldiers on the front lines. 

He leaves her behind with a long hug and a promise that he’ll be home soon, and she resigns herself to another stay with Ms. Roelle’s cruel words and reminders that no one will ever love a girl as ugly as she is. While he’s gone, she watches the news with morbid fascination as often as she’s able, staring in horror at the footage they show on television. Most of it is gruesome enough to have Ms. Roelle shutting the television off and scolding her sharply for watching such awful things, not that it keeps her from learning about the grisly details anyways. Her classmates are equally captivated by the narrative coming out of Essos, and even the most snobbish are eager to spill the stories to anyone who might listen—including the ugliest girl in their grade.

Most of the reports are delivered to reporters by General Aerys Targaryen, an aging man with a strange glint in his eyes that unnerves Brienne every time she sees him on screen. He looks harmless enough, but the unofficial rumours that make their way to Westeros call him the Mad General, saying his methods are far beyond what the government wants him to be doing. She asks her father about the rumours once, during one of their infrequent phone calls, but he admits that he’s never been close enough to the fighting to confirm any of the stories for her or her classmates. 

“It’s probably just stories,” he tells her right before saying goodbye. “Nothing to worry about. And if there is any reason for concern, the Prime Minister will keep him in check.”

His words don’t ease Brienne’s fears, but Ms. Roelle tells her she shouldn’t bother her father with her foolish concerns. So she doesn’t bring it up again, even if General Targaryen continues to terrify her whenever he appears in a news report. 

Months pass, and the war drags on with no sign of end. Selwyn comes by on a short leave, looking far more strained and tired than when he left. He tries to keep a lighthearted manner up in front of Brienne, but she overhears him admit to Ms. Roelle one evening that the war isn’t going the way anyone had hoped. She doesn’t relay this story to her classmates, even though it might endear her to them a little bit. If her father’s not saying it in front of her, it’s likely not information he wants spread around.

Once he leaves, she starts watching the news reports more closely. General Targaryen starts to look more dangerous with every appearance, eyes alight with an uncontrollable fire as he talks about troop movements and explosions. Prime Minister Tywin Lannister’s emotionless face looks increasingly strained as he tells crowds of reporters that everything is going fine, that there’s no cause for concern despite the war dragging on for months longer than anyone anticipated it being. 

Those stories do get passes around among her classmates, although she isn’t the one to spread them. Ronnet Connington, who she’d sort of liked until he humiliated her on her ninth birthday, triumphantly shares the letters he receives from an older cousin on the front lines, which imply that there may be some truth to the rumours of the Mad General. 

“Jon says that General Targaryen doesn’t want the war to end as quickly as the government does,” he says smugly one day, holding court during lunch while Brienne watches from the corner of the classroom. “Apparently the Prime Minister’s asked him to bring it to an end more than once, and he’s refused every time.”

“Is that true?” one girl asks, smiling prettily at Ronnet and laying a hand on his arm. “It seems too strange to possibly be real.”

Ronnet returns her smile, and Brienne forcefully turns her gaze to the wall. “Jon says so, so it must be true.”

Brienne privately doubts that Ronnet’s cousin is so undoubtedly correct about everything. Still, it would explain the frustration that even stony-faced Tywin Lannister can no longer hide. And Defence Secretary Rickard Stark announces shortly after Ronnet’s lunchtime posturing that he’ll be heading to the front in Essos “to ensure matters are being properly handled by the military leadership there.”

That particular announcement keeps her classmates entertained for weeks, so much so that they forget to taunt her for a little while. 

Her reprieve extends when Ronnet brings in his next letter, which ends up being the subject of another lunchtime court as Ronnet reads it aloud with dramatic flair. He even includes pauses for effect, giving such a masterful performance that Brienne wonders why his acting was so terrible in the school play earlier that year.

“Jon says Tywin Lannister’s son is there on the front lines with him,” Ronnet announces with another flourish, causing almost everyone else to gasp aloud. “He says that Aerys convinced the Lannister heir to join the military, which is why the Prime Minister’s so upset with him when he appears on the news. The Mad General’s quite smug about that one, according to Jon.”

“No wonder the general looks so terrible,” another boy says eagerly. “He’s gotta deal with the Prime Minister hounding him all the time now too.”

Ronnet snickers at that, and Brienne lets out a resigned sigh, already knowing what’s coming. “Pretty soon he’s gonna start looking like Brienne the Beauty,” he says with a sneer, and everyone laughs as Brienne turns her burning eyes back to the soggy sandwich Ms. Roelle shoved into her lunchbox that morning.

The conflict between the Prime Minister and his top general is quickly forgotten at the next press conference, where Tywin Lannister takes the podium with a more-somber-than normal expression. Three people stand behind him dressed in all black, ranging in age from their late teens to their early twenties. Ms. Roelle stops what she’s doing in the kitchen and turns around as the Prime Minister steps up to the microphone. 

“I regret to announce,” he begins, face emotionless, “that Defence Secretary Rickard Stark and his eldest son were killed yesterday just outside of Lys. Secretary Stark died when an unexpected wildfire explosion occurred, and his son, Major Brandon Stark, died as well when trying to save his life. All of Westeros will mourn both of these excellent men, who died valiantly while aiding us in this terrible war. The Stark family is currently asking for privacy at this time.”

The rest of the conference continues as normal, but Brienne hears nothing else. Ms. Roelle slowly walks over and shuts the television off, looking as shaken as Brienne feels.

“How awful for the Stark family,” Ms. Roelle says at last, shaking her head. “To lose both father and brother so quickly must be devastating. And Brandon was engaged, too! What will those children do now?”

Brienne doesn’t answer, not that her caretaker is looking for one. For the first time, she worries about her father, who could be flying past Lys right now. What if he’s the next one to die? What will happen to her then?

She expects that sobering news to make an impact at school, but not the way it does. A couple days after Rickard Stark’s death is announced, Ronnet gets another letter, one so thrilling he bursts into the room before class starts waving it in the air.

“You’ll never believe this!” he cries, practically vibrating with excitement as the students file in. “Jon says that the press conference was a lie, that the Starks didn’t actually die like that. He doesn’t know how they died, but he knows it wasn’t near Lys because he was in the area at the time and he never saw either of the Starks there.”

The students erupt at this pronouncement, with the teacher not even bothering to bring them back under control. Brienne gapes at Ronnet for all of a moment before catching herself, but her mind still whirls with questions as she returns her focus to her book. If Ronnet’s cousin is right…why would the government want to lie about what really happened to the Starks?

Selwyn calls again a week later, sounding more worried than he’s ever allowed himself to be when speaking to Brienne. He doesn’t mention what happened to the Starks, instead telling her that he’s going to be flying supplies over to Volantis sometime in the next few days. He ends the call with a promise that he’ll return soon, but for the first time Brienne doesn’t believe it. After what happened to the Starks, there’s no guaranteeing anything. Her father can’t promise he won’t be next, because there’s no way to control every factor that might kill him. He could be the next death they discuss at school.

A week later, Aerys Targaryen is killed by one of his own soldiers in Volantis. Another month passes, and the war abruptly comes to an end.

Speculation over what happened runs rampant at school, but Ronnet’s cousin wasn’t in Volantis at the time and can’t tell him what happened. The Prime Minister’s press conference on the matter doesn’t name the soldier who killed Aerys or what happened to them, leading most of her classmates to think whoever it was died shortly after. All Brienne knows is that the end of the war means her father’s coming home, and he can finally take her to the flying lessons he’s been promising her for almost three years now.

She still hasn’t forgotten her vow to fly someday, even if the taunts of her classmates have made it hard to hold onto that dream. Sometimes, she thinks that it would be easier up in the sky than on the ground, which helps her on days when Ronnet and the others are particularly cruel.

After all, if she’s guiding a plane though the clouds, it would be extremely difficult for any of her classmates to follow her up there.

***

When Brienne turns eighteen, she receives the letter telling her she’s been accepted into the Storm’s End Flight Academy, the best flight school in all of Westeros. Her father seizes her in a massive hug when she tells him the news, grinning broadly when he sees the letter with her name written in bold black ink. 

“I’m so proud of you!” he tells her later, once they’ve ordered dinner from Brienne’s favourite Pentoshi restaurant to celebrate. “So few women even get accepted to that school. With any luck, you’ll be the first to graduate and not be forced out by the assholes that teach there.”

She smiles broadly, even if her father’s words are a sudden reminder at how difficult this is going to be. There’s a reason she never told any of her classmates about her application to Storm’s End, after all. 

“I’ll do my best,” she says. And she means it. She’s managed to get this far with Ronnet Connington taunting her at every turn and Ms. Roelle constantly reminding her that her appearance will always be a hindrance to her goals in life. There’s nothing her instructors can’t say to her that she hasn’t heard before.

“I know you will,” Selwyn says, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “And I have no doubt that you’ll succeed, just as you always do.”

He tells her the same thing two months later at the Storm’s End airport, right before she boards the bus that takes her to flight school, her home for the next four years. The nerves have hit her as her first day draws closer, and she hugs her father tightly before stepping away to join the other people getting on the bus.

“Call me!” her father calls right before she steps on, and she quickly sends him a thumbs-up before making her way to a seat in the back. The bus continues to fill, and eventually someone comes to sit beside her as every other seat fills up. 

She glances over at her seat partner and immediately flushes and looks away again. He’s much more handsome than Ronnet, with dark hair and eyes that sparkle with mischief. He’s also smiling at her and doesn’t seem too put off by her appearance.

“Hey,” he says, extending a hand to her. “You heading to the flight school as well?”

“I-yes, yes I am,” she says, tripping over her words in her haste to reply. “I’m Brienne. Brienne Tarth.”

He smiles again, and she feels her heart skip a beat in her chest. “Renly Baratheon,” he offers, and she shakes his hand briefly before dropping her own back to rest on her lap. Gods, he’s handsome.

They talk casually most of the way there, never touching on anything personal but still sharing friendly conversation. He tells her that he lives in Storm’s End, but was visiting his brothers in King’s Landing over the summer, and she tells him a bit about Tarth when he asks. It’s nothing special, she knows, but she’s so used to people being rude immediately that having someone treat her as an equal feels remarkable and special. 

Part of her secretly hopes that they’re put in the same cohort once they arrive. Renly’s nice, and handsome, and she’d love to be able to spend more time with him. And if it allows her to harbour a bit of a crush…well, no one needs to know that but her. It’s not like he’ll ever be attracted to her anyways.

He further proves this point when he tentatively mentions his boyfriend, Loras, who he met on a trip to Highgarden a few years back. She’s initially deflated at his having a partner, but she notes his uncertain face and immediately asks for more information about his boyfriend. Clearly, he’s had some bad experiences with revealing that information to people, and she knows what it’s like to be mocked for things beyond her control.

For once, she’s in luck. They are placed in the same cohort upon arrival at Storm’s End Flight Academy, and she and Renly share a high five upon seeing so. 

“Awesome!” he tells her, sending her another knee-weakening grin. “It’ll be nice to have a friend in the same cohort.”

She returns his enthusiasm, even if it’s a little disappointing to only be friends. But Ms. Roelle taught her a long time ago that hoping for more is a fool’s errand, and in truth she’s had so few friends that Renly’s words are welcome—even if they’re not totally what she’d hoped for.

Their cohort is lead by a miserable older man, Randyll Tarly, who hates Brienne on sight for being a woman and makes enough homophobic comments to make Renly extremely uncomfortable around him. Tarly’s definitely the worst of their teachers, though Selwyn’s perception of them as assholes who feel threatened by the presence of a woman in their flight school is all too accurate. The other students aren’t much better, especially once Brienne proves herself to be better than any of them during their first flight simulation. 

Even Renly’s envious, asking her how she’s such a good pilot already when they leave campus in search of coffee that doesn’t taste a bit like gravel after the simulations wrap up. “Seriously,” he says as they walk along, “you clearly have some secret advantage over the rest of us. What do you have that no one else does?”

“My dad’s a pilot, and he gave me flying lessons in our island’s float planes when he returned from the war in Essos,” she explains, blushing furiously at his impressed look. “It’s nothing special, really. I just had access to planes earlier than most.”

“Still,” Really argues, “you would’ve been eleven when the war ended. And your dad started teaching you right away? It’s pretty impressive that you’ve been flying for seven years already. That’s way more years than I have.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not gonna win me any points with Tarly,” she mutters as they finally reach the cafe they’ve been looking for. “If I wasn’t such a good pilot, he’d come up with some idiotic excuse to get me expelled. He still might.”

“Ignore Tarly and the others,” Renly tells her, pulling the door open. “They’re just a bunch of shits who’re jealous that you’re better at this than they are. They don’t deserve your attention or your concern.”

She spends the next four years holding on to those words, knowing that Renly’s right. Still, Ms. Roelle’s voice remains in her head, telling her that she’s a fool for daring to try, that she should concede to Randyll Tarly’s desires and go back to Tarth like she should. She does her best to quash that part of her, but it’s hard. Some days, she’s sorely tempted to give up and let them all win.

But then she thinks about Ronnet’s smug face, Ms. Roelle’s pinched expression, Tarly’s cutting looks, and squares her shoulders and keeps going. She won’t let them win. She can’t.   
So for four years, she perseveres, despite everything her instructors throw in her way to try and make her stumble. She manages to keep going despite the assholes in her cohort who make that fucking bet, despite Renly dropping out when it becomes clear he’s just not meant to become a pilot. Through phone calls with her father and Renly, through her summer visits to Tarth and later Highgarden, she keeps going.

And when she graduates from Storm’s End Flight Academy as one of its top graduates, as the first woman to ever make it through four years of abuse and extra hurdles, she thinks for a moment that it might actually have been worth it.

***

Brienne is twenty-four when she gets hired as a commercial pilot for Casterly Airlines.

She doesn’t particularly want to work at Casterly, owned by former Prime Minister Tywin Lannister. But they’re willing to hire her, which is more than can be said for most airlines in Westeros. She’s spent the two years since she graduated carrying tourists to and from Tarth, and while she enjoys working with her father she doesn’t want to do that job indefinitely.

So, Casterly it is. Even if it means enduring Tywin Lannister’s children.

To be fair, the youngest one isn’t that bad. Tyrion Lannister tends to take charge of the airline when his father’s too busy running other parts of his sprawling company to deal with it, and despite his rather crude sense of humour Brienne actually doesn’t mind the rare occasions they’re forced to share each other’s company. But the twins. The twins.

All of the pilots at Casterly live with the knowledge that Tywin and his children can commandeer their services at any time to be flown somewhere on one of their private jets. Of the Lannister family, Cersei is by far the most likely to abuse that power.

(Brienne spends most of her first month at Casterly reeling from this knowledge, mostly from the fact that the family has multiple private planes. What kind of family has multiple private jets but doesn’t hire pilots with the sole job of flying them?)

Initially, Brienne tried her best to not hate Cersei Lannister for stupid reasons such as being ridiculously attractive and wealthy. After flying the woman from Lannisport to King’s Landing one time, she decides that there are many better reasons to hate Cersei. 

“She’s an elitist, snobbish asshole,” she tells Renly later, unable to refrain from calling him after that torturous piloting excursion. “She asked me multiple times why I couldn’t make the plane go any faster, despite the fact that I was already pushing it to its limits in terms of speed. And then she had the nerve to complain about her wine not being stored properly, even though I later found out from the stewardess that it was fine.”

“Don’t worry,” he replies with laughter in his voice. “She dated Robert for a while, and I can tell you from that experience that you are absolutely justified in hating her.”

Her brother Jaime isn’t any better, though he’s less elitist and more asshole. He rarely calls upon Brienne—or anyone, really—to fly him various places, but he always seems to be wherever she is at the same time, and he’s always calling her this stupid nickname even though she knows he’s aware of her actual name. He lost his right hand a few years back in some sort of accident, though she’s never been made aware of the specifics. According to Addam Marbrand, one of her actually decent fellow pilots, he’s mellowed out a great deal since his mysterious accident. Addam’s actually friends with Jaime, though, so Brienne doesn’t trust his judgment that much.

Shockingly, Renly agrees with Addam’s assessment when she complains about Jaime, though he admits he’s not sure how he lost his hand either. Renly also tells her that his partner Loras Tyrell doesn’t get along with Jaime at all, but they’re apparently far too similar to ever be friends. 

The only good thing Brienne can say for Jaime is that he’s never once challenged her on her ability as a pilot. He’s insulted her appearance, her personality, pretty much everything else about her, but he’s one of maybe three people at Casterly who hasn’t told her she’s not good enough to be working as a commercial pilot anywhere in Westeros. Otherwise, he’s nothing but an obscenely wealthy asshole who’s also ridiculously good-looking and charismatic. If Brienne hadn’t learned her lesson about handsome men long ago, she might be more worried about falling in love with him despite her good judgment.

Okay, so she’s at least a little bit in love with him. But she’s only human, and he really is ridiculously good-looking. 

It doesn’t matter, though, because men like Jaime Lannister don’t look twice at women like Brienne Tarth. He hangs out with women like Elia Martell and Catelyn Tully on a regular basis, after all. He’s just as shallow as every other man Brienne’s met during her twenty-four years of life—not including her father, who doesn’t really count anyways.

So she writes Jaime off as another one of her unfortunate crushes and keeps her head down as much as she can. She won’t work at Casterly forever. Eventually, one of the other airlines will realize she’s actually good at what she does, and then this chapter of her life will be behind her at long last.

***

Brienne is two days shy of her twenty-sixth birthday when she ends up stranded with Jaime Lannister in Harrenhal after the Lannister jet malfunctions and she’s forced to make an emergency landing on the way to King’s Landing. For once, she and Jaime agree on a matter when they share their equal distaste for being stuck in Harrenhal when they could be literally anywhere else. Most believe the crumbling old castle above the city is haunted, and though Brienne isn’t superstitious she also isn’t willing to go test the stability of that castle anytime soon. But there’s nowhere for them to stay in the city, so the hotel at Harrenhal castle it is.

Jaime grumbles the entire way there, and if he wasn’t her boss’s son Brienne would be tempted to smack him. She can’t do anything about that, however, and it turns out she actually agrees with most of his complaints. Someone should have realized that the plane was damaged after Cersei’s last reckless jaunt over to Essos, and it really is ridiculous that a city as large as Harrenhal doesn’t have one person with the qualifications to at least figure out what’s wrong with the plane. Still, that doesn’t mean she wants to listen to her own grievances the entire time they’re stranded here.

“Look,” she finally says, “I understand your frustration. I’m annoyed about this situation too. But I’d rather not talk about this for the whole week or two we might be stuck here for, so I would greatly appreciate it if you came up with some other topic of conversation for a while.”

Jaime shoots her an unreadable glance before shrugging carelessly. “If you say so, wench.”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes at the nickname and heads over to check in. The hotel built into the castle is definitely not the sort of place she’d ever wanted to visit, let alone spent at least a week stranded there for. But what can she do about it? Unless Tywin Lannister deigns to send another plane to pick them up, they have no other choice.

Her willingness to work with the situation only lasts until the concierge tells her in a bored voice that there’s only one room available for the next little while. “There’s two beds, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” the young woman says, barely looking up from the computer screen in front of her. “But otherwise we’re fully booked for the next month.”

“Alright,” she says slowly, taking the keycard and walking away like it’s perfectly fine that she’s not only stuck here with Jaime Lannister but now has to share a room with him for the foreseeable future. This is great. The gods must really be having a good time playing with her right now.

“They only have one room left,” she tells Jaime, who groans. “I know it’s misery for you to share space with me, but you’ll just have to deal with it for the next bit. Believe me, I asked about the alternatives already.”

“Wait,” Jaime says slowly, eyes widening slightly, “I don’t…it’s not—“

“No need to play nice,” she interrupts, brushing past him and heading towards the elevator. “I already know exactly how you feel about me.”

Jaime gapes after her for a moment before rushing after her, barely ducking into the elevator before the doors close and they begin ascending through Harrenhal. “What do you mean by that?”

She fights back the urge to sigh heavily at Jaime’s question. “I know you hate me, Lannister. You’ve made that very clear from the first time you saw me.”

The elevator dings and she steps out as soon as the doors open. From behind her, she hears Jaime spluttering, before he says, “I don’t…I don’t hate you!”

Really? Because you do an excellent job of acting like you do.

She doesn’t say that aloud, though. Jaime may be in perpetual hot water with Tywin, but he could still get her fired if she pissed him off enough.

Besides, they won’t be stuck out here for that long before someone makes it in to fix the plane. She can tolerate Jaime for that little while, and then life will go on. She won’t be here at Casterly for much longer anyways.

The room isn’t terrible, considering the shape most of the castle is in. It’s spacious enough that they won’t be tripping over each other constantly, and the concierge wasn’t lying when she said there were two beds. There is only one bathroom, however, and one look at that reveals some very untrustworthy plumbing. 

It could be worse, though. It could always be worse.

“Oh, this isn’t that bad,” Jaime says from behind her, having finally made it into the room. “It’s bigger than I expected it to be.”

She merely nods, tossing her bag onto the bed by the door. Jaime continues nattering on about something or other, recounting some story Tyrion told him right before he left for Riverrun. She mostly tunes him out as she pulls out her book and reads quietly, and they continue as such well into the evening.

Over the next few days, they settle into a routine of sorts. Every morning, Brienne wakes first and heads down to go for a run around the hotel property. She carefully loops around what used to be the bear pit and returns right after Jaime exits the bathroom. She then showers and changes while he seeks out food for them both, and they spent the remainder of their day existing together in a strange balance much like the one they struck out on their first night in Harrenhal. It’s oddly domestic, and Brienne spends quite a bit of time sternly telling herself that it won’t last.

Jaime’s toned down his insults dramatically after their conversation upon arrival, and he looks guilty when Brienne brings it up. “I felt bad,” he says after she spends an hour asking him why he changed so abruptly. “I thought…I didn’t realize you thought I hated you. I don’t hate you. You’re just…different than anyone else I know.”

She leaves the topic alone after that, uncertain how to respond to his statement. He doesn’t bring it up again either.

A week passes, and Brienne at last hears from the airport. “They finally got a mechanic in to look at the plane,” she tells Jaime once the phone call ends. “He says it’s going to take at least another week to fix the problem, but he has all the parts on hand so we won’t need to wait for parts to get ordered in.”

He nods carefully. “So we’ll be here for another week, at minimum. I’ll let my father know, since he’s clearly not going to bother picking us up.”

He heads down to the lobby to call his father, and Brienne returns to her book. It’s a retelling of the legend of Galladon of Morne, which was her favourite story as a child. She carries the book with her every time she flies. It’s her good luck charm, even if it hasn’t spared her from most of the Lannisters thus far.

It takes her a while to notice that something’s off when Jaime returns to the room. At least an hour passes before she realizes how oddly silent he’s being. The man normally never stops talking. If he’s silent, something’s wrong. 

Later, she’ll think that she should have said something then. But then again, would things have worked out so well if she hadn’t stayed silent? She doesn’t know. And she doesn’t feel the need to find out, either.

They continue on in silence for the rest of the evening, and it’s not until she goes to bed that Brienne wonders if she should ask Jaime what happened with his father. But she keeps her mouth shut. It’s not her place to ask, and he probably won’t tell her anyways. She puts the whole matter out of her mind and falls asleep.

It’s the middle of the night when she abruptly wakes up, sitting bolt upright and wondering what woke her. For a moment, the room is silent. Then Jaime thrashes in his bed again, whispering over and over. 

“No,” he murmurs, and she turns to look at him with a frown. “No, no, don’t!”

As he cries out, she scrambles out of bed to shake his shoulder firmly. “You’re dreaming, Jaime,” she tells him as he surges upwards and glances around with frantic eyes. “It’s just a dream. Everything’s fine.”

He leans forward, breathing heavily, and she sits tentatively on the edge of the bed. “Thank you,” he tell her after a moment, once his breathing levels out. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She nods, but doesn’t move away. “Do…do you want to talk about it?” she asks after another minute passes. “You don’t have to, but it might help.”

There’s another beat of silence, and she pulls back. “Sorry, I shouldn’t intrude. It’s none of my business anyways…”

“No, it’s fine,” he says quickly, bracing his head in his hand and arm. “I…I should probably talk to someone about all of this anyways.” He takes another deep breath in before looking up at her and blurting out, “I killed Aerys Targaryen.”

Brienne stares blankly at him for a moment, only able to think that Ronnet Connington would be furious to not have known this information first. “Sorry, what?”

“I killed Aerys Targaryen,” he says again, slower this time. “Sixteen years ago, in Volantis. And my father covered it up, because he didn’t want anyone to know that his son did something so stupid, so reckless. And I just let him do that, instead of revealing the truth like I should have.”

He stares down at his hand, too many emotions crossing his face for Brienne to understand. “Why?” she asks, eventually, when he fails to elaborate any further. “Why would you kill him?”

Jaime smiles wryly, suddenly looking far older than his thirty-six years. “I assume you heard the rumours. They called him the Mad General, and they probably weren’t wrong. To this day, I don’t know if he was mentally ill, or if he just…either way, he was obsessed with wildfire. The explosive we were using over in Essos. He loved it like he loved nothing else. And he especially loved watching people burn when he threw them into it. That’s what happened to Rickard and Brandon Stark. Rickard started asking too many questions, so he blew up a wildfire cache under him and killed him. Brandon did die trying to save his father’s life, though. The news got that one right, at least.” He laughs, but there’s no humour in the sound.

“My father covered it up, of course. He couldn’t let it be known that the Defence Secretary had been murdered by his top general, couldn’t let it be known that he could no longer reign Aerys in. But he did try to have me discharged. He didn’t want to lose his precious heir to Aerys Targaryen’s madness. I refused to go, though. I hated what I was seeing over there. I wanted…gods, I don’t even know. I just knew I didn’t want to be a part of what Aerys was doing. I couldn’t be a part of what he was doing. But I didn’t know how to stop him. Not until Volantis.”

He pauses, looking darkly down at his palm and stump. “I arrived in Volantis shortly after Aerys did, and he assigned me to his personal detail. I’d just been promoted to captain, and I thought that I was being wasted on a boring job. I wanted to go out and fight, not guard the general. But I stuck around and did my duty, and I watched as Aerys brought more and more wildfire into Volantis. He’d been extending the war for months, see. He could have ended it two months in, but he didn’t. Because he’d been waiting for a moment like this. A moment where he could see exactly what his beloved wildfire could do. He placed caches of wildfire under the entire city. A city filled with civilians, with innocent people who he had no reason to want to kill. And then, the day they began flying supplies in, he told his favourite toady, Corporal Rossart, to go and…blow up the entire city. To light all of the caches and burn the whole thing down.”

She stares at him, aghast. “My father…he was part of the Air Force. He was supposed to be flying supplies into Volantis.”

“He would have died,” Jaime says softly. “If Aerys had succeeded…we’d all have died. I was twenty, newly away from my father’s influence. I didn’t know what else to do.” His voice cracks, and Brienne suddenly feels the urge to put an arm around him. “I pulled out my gun and shot Rossart before he could carry out his orders. And then…I turned and I shot Aerys through the head. Twice, just to make sure he couldn’t give anyone else the same orders when I left. And then I sat there and waited for someone to come find me. Anyone.

“You probably don’t know that Ned Stark followed in his big brother’s footsteps and joined the cause. He was the first person to walk in, to see me sitting there with Aerys’s body at my feet. And I said nothing, because I didn’t know what to say, but I should’ve said something. I should’ve made it impossible for my father to hide what really happened. But I just…I was terrified, and I went away to some other place where I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of what I’d done.”

“But you saved everyone,” she says quietly, unable to look away. “You did the right thing.”

He laughs ruefully, shaking his head. “No one knew that, though. Ned Stark thinks I did it to give my father more power, and I’ve never said anything to dissuade him from that belief. My father never asked. Neither did my siblings, not even Cersei. I once thought she would, but…I was wrong about her. I thought she loved me, but I was nothing more than a tool for her to wield as she saw fit. And this,” he raises his stump in the air, “this made it even worse.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “Are you saying…”

“What you think I’m saying? Yes, wench,” he grinds out, jaw clenching as he continues. “I had an affair with my twin sister. I shouldn’t have, and it was wrong, but I didn’t care about that at the time. I thought we had some great forbidden love, but it turns out she just wanted to feel better about the fact that Father thought her inferior because she wasn’t born a boy. And then I lost my hand, and it all came crashing down, and I realized I’d been a fool to think she ever loved me, to think that there was anything right or good in what we were doing. So I ended it, and she’s been furious with me ever since.”

“Good.” Brienne doesn’t know where her conviction came from, but she’s not going to worry about that now. “She’s a horrible person, and you deserve better than someone who treats you like that.”

He glances up at her, and she’s shocked to see tears in his eyes. “You’re too good for me, Brienne,” he says shakily. “I don’t…I don’t deserve you. I’ve treated you terribly.”

“You haven’t,” she argues immediately. “You never said anything I haven’t heard before. Honestly, you haven’t done anything terrible enough to make the list of the worst people I know. You’ve never humiliated me in public by throwing my crush on you in my face after treating me kindly for months before hand, or told me that no one will ever love me besides my father, or made bets to see who could take my virginity first and only revealed that because a friend of mine forced you to. I’ve been treated worse before.”

He looks furious at her words, not at all the reaction she hoped for. “Have people really done that to you?”

She sends him a baffled look. “I know how I look, Jaime. It’s not good, but things could have been worse for me.”

“Bullshit,” he snaps, his left hand clenching into a fist. “You don’t deserve any of that. You’re an amazing pilot, and a good kind person, and you’re one of the best people I know. You deserve only the best the world has to offer, not people treating you like shit and a garbage job at my father’s corrupt company and fucked-up airline. You deserve someone who will see you for the amazing person you are and doesn’t have a massive heap of their own baggage to pile on you as well. You…you deserve someone so much better than me.”

“What are you talking about?” His words aren’t making any sense. She deserves better than him? What does that even mean?

He stares down at his lap again, unable to meet her gaze. “Listen, I clearly have no idea how to flirt with women I’m actually interested in. The thing is, I like you, Brienne. I have for a long time.”

“I would sincerely hope you like me, if you’re telling me all of this personal information. I guess we have to be friends after all of that.”

“No!” he says loudly. “I mean, I do consider you a friend, but I also…I like you as more than a friend. As in I’d, uh, I’d like to go out with you if we ever get back to Lannisport?”

Is he blushing?

“Jaime…”

He’s definitely blushing. “Listen, I know you have no reason to like me, and I know I’m ten years older than you and one hand short and have more trauma than any one person should have, but I really am interested in you, wench. And Tyrion’s sick of hearing me talk about you by now, and I really should have said something before spilling all of my deepest secrets to you, and…”

“Jaime,” she interrupts, unable to keep the fondness out of her tone. “Shut up. Of course I’ll go out with you, if you’re willing to be seen with an ugly woman who also has more than her fair share of trauma after all of the shit people have put her through.”

“Is that even a question. I don’t care about any of that, Brienne. Maybe I did at first, but Jaime from two years ago was a fool for thinking your appearance matters. You’re still the best person I know.”

Now it’s her turn to blush. “Then…I guess we have a date?”

He laughs again, this time with genuine joy in his voice. “After all that? I sure hope so.”

Brienne smiles shyly, ducking her head. “Listen, if we’re going to do this then I need to tell you something. I really hope it won’t change your answer, but if it does…”

“It won’t,” Jaime says fiercely, placing his hand over one of hers. “I swear it, Brienne. Nothing you say can dissuade me from taking you out once we leave Harrenhal.”

“I’m leaving Casterly Airlines,” she says quietly. “We probably…we probably won’t see each other nearly as much anymore. I…I have a friend down in Highgarden, who got me a job with Rose Air. I’ll be heading down there in three months.”

She looks away from him, unable to watch his disappointment. Instead, he grips her hand more firmly. “Good.”

Her eyebrow darts up and she glances at him. “Good? Jaime, we’ll be so much farther apart!”

“Good,” he repeats firmly. “Because we’ll work it out. My father’s company is corrupt and terrible, and I’ve been making plans to leave it behind for years now. Maybe Tyrion and I will form our own company to compete with him, or something, I don’t know yet. But you deserve this position with Rose Air, and I’m not going to give you up just because we’re going to be separated by a little bit of land. That’s what planes are for, after all.”

She must be entirely red in the face by now, but she’s also smiling more broadly than she has since her graduation from Storm’s End. The mechanic is here to fix the plane. She has a new, much better job lined up in a few months. And she has the promise of a date with the most handsome man she’s ever met, who is, despite all odds, actually interested in her too. 

Maybe the gods aren’t toying with her after all.

***

Brienne is twenty-eight when Storm’s End Flight Academy asks her to teach a course there for the next term.

It’s been ten years since her acceptance letter for the school arrived, and Randyll Tarly has since moved on to tormenting people somewhere else. There are far more women entering the academy now than there were before, and she’s no longer the only woman to work as a pilot in all of Westeros. Rose Air is more than willing to let her go for a little while, and she’s been considering moving on to a new airline anyways.

“It’d be a chance to breath for a bit before going and taking the King’s Landing job,” she tells Jaime that evening while she mulls over her decision. “And they actually want me to talk about my experiences as a woman in the flight industry, which I hadn’t expected. I think it might actually be worth a try.”

“Then do it,” Jaime says, slipping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her closer. “If you think it’s a good idea, then we can settle in Storm’s End for a while. You did want to see your father more, and it would make wedding planning easier if we’re closer to Tarth for the next three months or so.”

“You sure?” She turns to look at him, frowning a little as she considers it. “I know you and Tyrion are really busy with the company right now.”

“I can do my job from Storm’s End just as easily as anywhere else,” he tells her, pressing his lips to her forehead briefly. “And Tyrion knows that I’ll follow my fiancée anywhere she wants me to go, even if it ends up being to Winterfell.”

She laughs at that, slipping her own arm around him. “Don’t worry, I know your fragile body can’t handle the cold. And I also know that your equally fragile ego can’t handle the weight of Ned Stark’s judgment, especially not with your crush on him.”

“I do not have a crush on Ned Stark,” he splutters, looking affronted.

“Really?” she teases, smiling at his indignant expression. “Then how come you keep griping about how awful it is that such an honourable man thinks you’re a cold-hearted murderer, and that his stupid eyes never hide his hatred and that he’s so strong and good and…”

Jaime clamps his hand over her mouth to make her stop talking, making her laugh even harder. “You’re being mean to me,” he whines. “I’m going to call your father and tell him that his daughter’s being mean to me.”

Brienne laughs again, more carefree than she ever was before meeting Jaime. She’ll take the job with the academy, she decides, and then they’ll see where their flight path will take them next. She has several different offers now, from King’s Landing and Winterfell and even Pentos, far across the sea. But wherever she goes, she won’t be alone, because Jaime will follow her across the entire world without fail, just as he has ever since those faithful two weeks together in Harrenhal.


End file.
